tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22896068385892421222023-11-16T04:47:22.518-08:00A conception of artThis blog holds my thoughts about art, theory, technology, and lines of inquiry into the aforementioned. These are bits of my own projects, my responses to other artists' work and whatever else I find relevant or interesting.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-22249067189705562982010-05-20T12:26:00.000-07:002010-05-20T12:29:15.192-07:00On Data and the Inception of Meaning: An Examination of Database Art, Metaphor and Narrative.<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:medium;"><div style="margin-top: 6px; margin-right: 6px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); min-height: 1100px; counter-reset: __goog_page__ 0; line-height: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:12pt;"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Written for my Philosophy of art class, this isn't short but it holds a lot of the ideas I think are interesting and relevant.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; text-align: center; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">On Data and the Inception of Meaning: An Examination of Database Art, Metaphor and Narrative.</span></b></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Contemporary art practice increasingly utilizes computing to express the human experience. As a new media artist armed with art theory and philosophy I will examine how computing can be used to create meaningful art. True to the subject, I will first define the variables in our discussion.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Since we are discussing art, we should first define such a nebulous term. The definition that will be used in this essay is that offered by Nicolas Bourriaud, contemporary art theorist, in the glossary of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Relational Aesthetics</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">: “Art 1. General term describing a set of objects presented as a part of a narrative known as </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">art history</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">... 2. Nowadays, the word 'art' seems to be no more than a semantic leftover of this narrative, whose more accurate definition would read as follows: Art is an activity consisting in producing relationships with the world with the help of signs, forms, actions, and objects.”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">The first definition reflects that whether or not an object is art is not determined by its physically perceptible properties but by its cultural context. But the definition is so broad as to be useless for evaluating or producing a work of art. Bourriaud offers us a second, useful definition that helps us include in our definition of art contemporary genres such as interactive, relational and new media art.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Having established what art is, there are a number of more interesting questions to be posed. Such as, what is </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">good</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> art? Good art, I will claim, has a potent aesthetic and concept.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Potency is qualitative and the only instrument for its evaluation is the art critic. Of course the evaluation of what is qualitative is a sticky and subjective process, therefore, we will rely on the exhaustive definition of an art critic arrived at by Hume: “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics... and the... verdict of such... is the true standard of taste and beauty. (Hume, 87)” We will of course update our critic to the contemporary era, to include that they also be responsive to the art world, as described by Danto: “To see something as art requires something the eye cannot decry—an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld. (Danto, 477)”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Concept is the abstract idea of a work and the work's aesthetic is the particular instantiation of the concept. The two are inextricably intertwined into one irreducible, complex object. They can be examined separately, but can only be understood in the way that they reinforce each other. A concept is potent to the extent that it creates meaning, either through metaphor or narrative. I will focus more on concept in order to examine how metaphor and narrative are created in case examples of database art: art that uses database as medium.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Artists should make art with databases because it is important to examine how the tools we create as a culture then shape us: in formatting our lives in ways that fit into databases, we categorize and understand our lives differently. Lakoff, using the work of cognitive scientists such as Elanor Rosch explains the relationship of categorization to cognition: “An understanding of how we categorize is central to any understanding of how we think and how we function, and therefore central to an understanding of what makes us human. (Lakoff, 6)” The database, in defining new ways to categorize redefines our systems of thought. A parallel historical example is that of the mechanical clock: Lewis Mumford in </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Technics and Civilization</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> writes, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">"The clock is a piece of machinery whose 'product' is seconds and minutes." He elaborates th</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">at </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">the clock was the key to the invention of the Industrial Revolution: t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">he fungiblity of time had cascading, systemic effects, barely perceptible in a decade or even a century, but massive nonetheless. The database, no doubt, will have effects of similar magnitude.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">A database is a fairly low-level tool for computing. Electronic digital computing, (as opposed to the analog computers that put men on the moon) at its lowest level is a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and memory. The CPU executes instructions. All instructions and the objects of the instructions are stored in memory. It is remarkable the level of abstraction this is capable of: that in digital logic one (or, more often a whole legion of scientists and programmers such as those in the Cal Tech </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Department of Computation and Neural Systems</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> ) can simulate artificial neural networks. Or, taking it a step further, t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">he </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Blue Brain Project </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">is attempting to create a synthetic brain by </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">reverse-engineering t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">he mammalian brain down to the molecular level using a biologically realistic model of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">neurons ("About the Blue Brain Project")</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Computing has extended the human ability to create abstractions and symbolic systems to an incomprehensible extent. But even at such complex levels, the basic unit of computing is executing instructions on data.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Data is not new. Databases are not new. Recording information in a systematic fashion has been going on since the advent of writing (and even before): “The earliest accounting records were found amongst the ruins of ancient </span></span><a href="https://docs.google.com/wiki/Babylon"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Babylon</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">, </span></span><a href="https://docs.google.com/wiki/Assyria"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Assyria </span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">and </span></span><a href="https://docs.google.com/wiki/Sumer"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Sumeria</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">, which date back more than 7,000 years (“Accountancy”). The first encylopedia </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Naturalis Historia </span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">(</span></span><a href="https://docs.google.com/wiki/Latin_language"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Latin f</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">or "Natural History") was</span></span><a href="https://docs.google.com/wiki/Encyclopedia"> </a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">published </span></span><a href="https://docs.google.com/wiki/Circa"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">circa </span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">AD 77-79 by </span></span><a href="https://docs.google.com/wiki/Pliny_the_Elder"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Pliny the Elder</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> (“Naturalis Historia”)...What</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> is</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> new, and thus merits this discussion, is the magnitude and flexibility of data storage, treatment, and access afforded by databases and computing, and the new possibilities they afford. Petabytes of data storage and the advanced state of software are so huge as to constitute something truly novel. For our purposes, a new art medium of timely relevance.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">What is data, anyway? Data is a representation. In computing, it is a representation in bytes. Thanks to some really advanced electrical engineering and the mathematics of image compression, data can easily include anything that can come through a lens or a sensor, and of course language and numbers. Books. Encyclopedias. The 52,000 recorded testimonies of Holocaust survivors collected by the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which would take one person forty years to watch. Data can be anything one can convert into bytes. If the object to be quantified cannot be quantified by computers directly, it can be quantified by people and entered as data.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Understanding data and database as representation, database becomes an obvious art medium. The process of making a database could be compared to the process of making a painting, the process of painting having taken on significance in the latter 20</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:78%;">th</span></sup></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> century: any aspect of the process can be aesthetic and/or conceptual.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">The process of making a database is largely a matter of selection: of data type, field sizes, architecture. “To illuminate the operative nature of database aesthetics, one needs to point at a number of human processes—memory, thought, association, cataloging, categorizing, framing, contextualizing, decontextualizing, as well as grouping. The production of boundary objects, grammars of information, grammars of attention, the production of media constellations, and the exploration of principles of combinatorics all become potential variables for employment in the creation of interactive works of art. (Seaman, 121)”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">An aesthetic, let us not forget, is the instantiation of the concept, and quite frankly a perceptible aesthetic is much more potent than one that is imperceptible. In this case, presenting the database is an important step for making good art and the choices in those methods of presentation, which reflect the conceptual choices of what data to include, how to flatten and analyze the data, etc. are easily evaluated aesthetically.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">The two examples of database art we will examine are </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">2009 Annual Report</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> by</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> Nicolas Feltron and </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> by</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">The premise of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">2009 Annual Report</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> is this: “Each</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> day in 2009, I asked every person with whom I had a meaningful encounter to submit a record of this meeting through an online survey. These reports form the heart of the 2009 Annual Report. From parents to old friends, to people I met for the first time, to my dentist… any time I felt that someone had discerned enough of my personality and activities, they were given a card with a URL and unique number to record their experience. I kept track only of who I gave survey invitations to, the number of the card and where it was given. The surveys answers were submitted via text forms, allowing the respondee to write whatever they desired, and leaving the task of making comparisons between the data up to me. I have used only this information to create the report, however accurate it may be. I have strived to sort and collate the data in a clinical and repeatable manner that could be reproduced by someone looking for the same stories I have selected.”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Data collected includes relationship of the person to Feltron, the activities they were engaged in, the duration of their relationship, mood, conversation topics, food and drink consumed. The report includes meta data such as the number of respondents and the total amount of time reported on, and the whole thing is presented with elegant data visualizations.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">This is a thoroughly impressive undertaking—trying to represent a year in his life as a data set. It is poetic and scientific to collect data on the self through relationships. Scientifically, others are a more objective source of data. Poetically, it suggests that Feltron's life is defined by relationships. This work involves all of the processes typical of database art: data type selection, data collection, data filtering, data processing, and finally a presentation of said data. What we get, of course, is a representation of Feltron's life that has flattened his days, habits, moods and relationships into numbers.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">This is simultaneously a more intimate and more impersonal portrait than a photograph. We don't know what Feltron looks like, but we do know that on July 18</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:78%;">th</span></sup></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">, 2009 he was “'Pensive (but not in a lame way).'-Nicolas B.” This raises some interesting artistic possibilities: “A database can be a region of alternative story constructs. (Wienbren, 69)” If we were to scramble the data, we could extrapolate infinite alternative stories and different possible lives. If, rather than meeting Rebecca at Ace Bar for Gigi's birthday November 20</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:78%;">th</span></sup></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">, he had instead met with Jessica at Red Hook pool (Feltron,“Where”). </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">This is an entirely new way to describe a life or write a memoir.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">I saw "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2007. At the time I had not yet heard about scraping the web, and the piece felt to me like it was tapping into our collective consciousness. Influenced by Noam Chomsky's theory of language, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post, </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">like most </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">of Rubin's work, consists of applying computer algorithms to a body of text (in this case, the Internet), to parse from it phrases, which an algorithm reorganizes and displays on vacuum fluorescent displays. “</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post is an art installation that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens... Listening Post is a visual and sonic response to the content, magnitude, and immediacy of virtual communication. (“Listening Post”)”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> is</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> decontextualizing language by rendering it into pieces then recontextualizing it in a new language game. The meaning of the related phrases is created by the viewer. I went to listen to Rubin give a lecture for the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium at UC Berkeley. He described how he experimented with having performers deliver the phrases, and found that it did not "work" as well, though he had trouble articulating why. It seems to me that the Art in his work lies there, in the viewer creating the meaning, assembling the phrases of hundreds of disparate people into one narrative. When an actor reads the phrases, they are interpreting the phrase and creating the meaning and delivering it to the audience, which coming from one individual is a series of nonsense, and uninteresting.</span></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Rubin made the distinction that in his work the words are not chosen randomly (as in the Chance Operations of John Cage), rather, systematically by a computer. He chooses among the algorithms (applying his sense of aesthetic) by how well they work to create meaning or generate feeling. While </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">2009 Annual Report</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> converts a meaningful story (Feltron's life) into data then into a meaningful work, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> makes a meaningful work from entirely disparate and random data.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Lev Manovich, in “Database as Symbolic Form” claims that “database and narrative forms... [are] two competing imaginations.” We have seen, rather, that database holds remarkable and unprecedented potential for narrative. “Narrative can be retooled in light of the database: … new media open an opportunity for rethinking the notion of narrative. (Wienbren, 66)”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Metaphor and narrative are advanced symbols, beyond the elementary function of signs. They allow for a way of understanding that which ordinary signifiers cannot contain. I would advance the idea that art is meaningful via one of two processes: to the extent that it is a metaphor or a narrative. Ricoeur writes, “symbolism, taken at the level of manifestation in texts, marks the breakthrough of language toward something other than itself. (Ricoeur, 387)”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Wittgenstein examines this point, this “breakthrough,” of language and the inception of meaning closely in </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Philosophical Investigations</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">: “For a </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">large</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word 'meaning' it can be defined as thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. (Wittgenstein, 20)” We can then combine this with Bourriaud's definition of art, and claim that the meaning of art is the relationships it creates: the metaphors and narratives.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Metaphor and narrative are how humans understand: “Metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action... On the contrary, … metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language... Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. (Lakoff and Johnson, 3)” and “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. (Lakoff and Johnson, 5)”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">As for narrative, Mieke Bal offers a definition: “A </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">narrative text</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> is a text in which an agent relates (“tells”) a story in a particular medium, such as language, imagery, sound, buildings, or a combination thereof. A </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">story</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> is a fabula that is presented in a certain manner. A </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">fabula</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> is a series of logically and chronologically related events that are caused or experienced by actors. An </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">event</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> is the transition from one state to another state. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Actors</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> are agents that perform actions. They are not necessarily human. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">To act </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">is defined here as to cause or to experience an event. (Bal, 5)” and “Since 'text' refers to narratives in any medium, I will use this word with an emphasis on the structuredness, not the linguistic nature of it; to keep this in mind I will use it interchangeably with 'artifact.'(Bal, 6)”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">An artwork, then, when successful, is an extra-linguistic metaphor or a narrative.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Both </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">2009 Annual Report</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> and </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> are </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">narratives: in his annual reports, Felton is our actor, whose events are related by those who filled out his forms. The events are logically and chronologically related, but Felton delivers us additional relations—relations newly available via the process of converting his life into a database, connecting his experiences with various categories such as “Food” and “Mood.” The fabula is his entire year of experience in all its mundane detail, which the data represents.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">It's easy to see how the </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">2009 Annual Report</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> is a narrative because it is a set of data that represents a man's life. The way the </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> operates as narrative is a little more involved. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">It has six scenes, but let us only discuss one. In the “I am” scene, an algorithm culls phrases that start with “I am” or “I'm,” sorts them by length, then displays them, adding them one or a few at a time to the wall of 200 small display screens. Experienced over time one gets a sense that the installation as an intelligent machine is telling us about all of these people (the actors) and their lives, revealing a little more and a little more about them as the lines get longer. It starts with phrases like “I am 25” and progresses to “I am working in Philadelphia.” The progress of revelation constitutes the events and describes the (hundreds of anonymous) actors' actions. Narrative in this case depends on the selection and contextualizing of data.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Both of these works are metaphors that offer us analogies to differently understand biography and virtual communication respectively.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">These works could not be understood without the strength of their aesthetics. The highly graphic data visualizations of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">2009 Annual Report</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> easily communicate the data and suggest the familiar forms and methods used for data visualization of sales reports and weather statistics. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post's </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">immersive room with its hundreds of glowing screens is surely what is is like to be inside the Internet.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Computing is based on reduction. Plato tells us that representation “... is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth. (Plato, 44)” Part of the process of database art is the flattening and reduction of meaningful input. Database art reconstitutes that reduction into meaning. It has the potential to demonstrate the dramatic reductions to the human experience that are the consequence of pervasive use of database as medium for cultural exchange and tool of knowledge. Conversely, computing allows for effectively infinite abstraction, and database art holds the potential to communicate multilinear narratives of unprecedented depth and breadth to everyone on the global network.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Works Cited</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">:</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></i></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">“</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">About the Blue Brain Project.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/Jahia/site/bluebrain/op/edit/pid/18699</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. 19 May 2010.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></i></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Bal, Mieke. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Narratology: An Introduction to the Theory of Narrative</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Inc, 1997.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></i></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Bourriaud, Nicolas. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Relational Aesthetics</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Les presses du reel, 2002.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Danto, Arthur. “The Artworld.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Art and Its Significance</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Ed. Stephen Ross. State University of New York: New York, 1994.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Feltron, Nicolas. “2009 Annual Report.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">http://feltron.com/index.php?/content/2009_annual_report/.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> 19 May 2010.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Hume, David. “Of the Standard of Taste.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Art and Its Significance</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Ed. Stephen Ross. State University of New York: New</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">York, 1994.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Metaphors We Live By</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">“</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Listening Post.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">http://www.earstudio.com/projects/listeningpost.html</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. 19 May 2010.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Manovich, Lev. “Database as Symbolic Form.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Ed. Vesna, Victoria. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Mumford, Lewis. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Technics and Civilization</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc., New York, 1934.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">"Naturalis Historia." </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalis_Historia</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">19 May 2010.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Plato. “</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Republic.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Art and Its Significance</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Ed. Stephen Ross. State University of New York: New York, 1994.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Ricoeur, Paul. “The Problem of Double Meaning as Hermeneutic Problem and as Semantic Problem.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Art and Its</span></u></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Significance</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Ed. Stephen Ross. State University of New York: New York, 1994.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Rubin, Ben</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. “</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">What's that Ticking Sound?”The </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Art, T</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">echnology, and Culture Colloquium, 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley. 2 Nov. 2009.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Seaman, Bill. “Recombinant Poetics and Related Database Aesthetics.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Ed. Vesna, Victoria. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Weinbren, Grahame. “Ocean, Database, Recut.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Ed. Vesna, Victoria. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Wittgenstein, Ludwig. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Philosophical Investigations</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">. Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1953.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Further Reading/ web browsing:</span></b></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">Chang, Fay et al. “Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data." Available at http://labs.google.com/papers/bigtable.html</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">www.visualcomplexity.com</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">http://rhizome.org/</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;">http://stamen.com/</span></span></p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></div></div></div></span>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-22485475415360387132010-05-17T17:50:00.000-07:002010-05-17T18:01:07.415-07:00Window Poetry<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmVjveL8vb3TzlQH9yu0p6rZHH-8tYEoqsuSWGIu8ghxvpCv-89qIx9edb6bLzDRgn646NHLP2D4O7g-xWSKvRxMOEu3ZqUsUpt_YGN4_JrpYbo7dMEia4E0Fa70f9AVzvm0dTV9Rc/s1600/MaryFranck3.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmVjveL8vb3TzlQH9yu0p6rZHH-8tYEoqsuSWGIu8ghxvpCv-89qIx9edb6bLzDRgn646NHLP2D4O7g-xWSKvRxMOEu3ZqUsUpt_YGN4_JrpYbo7dMEia4E0Fa70f9AVzvm0dTV9Rc/s320/MaryFranck3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472405894706206594" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></a><br /><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>In an era of constantly increasing volumes and volumes of data, <a href="http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/">data visualizations</a> are a useful way to observe data. <i>Window Poetr</i>y is a visualization of poetry: when writing poetry, words combine to form metaphors and new meanings. <i>Window Poetry</i> parallels that process with images.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span> Made with substantial contributions from <a href="http://benchun.net/">Benjamin Chun</a>, <i>Window Poetry</i> is an interactive installation of projected images, reclaimed windows and a typewriter. Words entered by typing call up corresponding images which are displayed in the windows. The participant types into a mechanical typewriter on an antique desk. Hidden inside these analog and tactile objects is a computer running a program that scrapes Flickr for the images entered. Projections mapped to the windows display the images in the frames.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>I'm currently fascinated by metaphor, symbol, narrative and the inception of meaning. My interest is inspired largely by philosophy and linguistics. In <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=JoPYriJM1cwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=philosophical+investigations+wittgenstein&hl=en&ei=I-PxS5enE52utgOWzN2kDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">Philosophical Investigations</a>, Wittgenstein closely explores the point at which meaning is created through thought experiments about limited language games. His conclusion (among many others) is that a word's meaning is its use in a language. <i>Window Poetry</i> in a way parallels this property of language: Flickr delivers its "Most Interesting" photos as determined by a combination of relevance of tags and number of "favorites" and comments. <a href="http://theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html">Lakoff claims that the way that we understand is with metaphor</a>, so it is interesting to observe the instantiation of metaphors simultaneously in words and images.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>In <i>Window Poetry</i>, visual meaning is attempted in the sequential symbol-to-word format of language. Since there is a random element, sometimes a sequence works. But more often than not the image composition doesn't really work with the words, that is, the linguistic metaphor doesn't translate into separate images.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>What happens with words when we combine two of them together is different than what happens when we combine two images. This is an affront to a general notion of language where word = thing. We would expect word a + word b to equal thing a + thing b but it does not. And in poetry words and images operate differently.</div>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-2977359404903756182010-05-17T17:33:00.000-07:002010-05-17T17:34:53.801-07:00Hyphae<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzgl9k3ZGBqbKf-j0ME9HkVAaOJ2SUD7aCuO2HK8OMbnQl7r9ynYWNetOoO53jpK5_2cizEgFcgpPorKFfiC5QDKXsx6mqQyNhymwf1sCzeNN8pFZp95a0LK_0tVr9k_pmKL7WxqD-/s1600/MaryFranck2.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzgl9k3ZGBqbKf-j0ME9HkVAaOJ2SUD7aCuO2HK8OMbnQl7r9ynYWNetOoO53jpK5_2cizEgFcgpPorKFfiC5QDKXsx6mqQyNhymwf1sCzeNN8pFZp95a0LK_0tVr9k_pmKL7WxqD-/s320/MaryFranck2.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472399287090199138" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 200px; " /></a><div><i>Hyphae</i> is my most recent work, made with <a href="http://broxtronix.org/log/?p=53">Michael Broxton</a>: a representational algorithmic work in new media.</div><div><br /></div><div>Inspired by the generative structures of nature and the algorithmic models that can describe them, <i>Hyphae</i> is an interactive video floor that responds to the participants' presence. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycelium">Mycelia</a> systems grow at their feet in a projected image of dirt while color swirls around them.</div><div><br /></div><div>DNA can be conceived as a molecular program and an organism's life the process of executing that incredibly complex program. We can see the process of plant or fungal growth as a series of iteration and recursion. While a narrow way to think about growth, it has inspired the algorithmic drawing and behavior of this project.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hyphae are tubular filaments of mycelium, the metabolic part of a fungus. Mycelia growth patterns such as those imitated for <i>Hyphae</i> can be modeled and studied with fractals, and closely resemble <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_limited_aggregation">Diffusion Limited Aggregation</a> fractals. Scientist use fractal analysis to describe the behavior of mycelium:</div><div>“Fungal mycelia are iterative and modular structures with different branching strategies according to the nature of the substratum and abundance of nutrients... The calculated fractal exponent is a good descriptor of mycelia branching and growth. In nutrient poor environment, the fractal exponent describes foraging type of mycelia branching due to explorative growth strategy (between D= 1.14 and 1.32) while in nutrient rich environment it describes the exploitative growth strategy (between D=1.62 and D=1.89) (Branching Patterns in Fungal Hyphae During the Colonization of Quercu Cerris and Quercus Petraea Litter, by Ecaterina Fodor, Teusdea Alin, Haruta Ovidu).”</div><div><br /></div><div>Additionally, “...Mycelia differentiate to form a complex interconnected network having a modular and iterative nature (Gooday, 1995)”</div><div><br /></div><div>The programming for <i>Hyphae</i> imitates this modular and iterative nature and adds behavior algorithms that causes the separate mycelium systems to grow toward other systems, so when people stand on the floor, they grow connections to each other.</div><div><br /></div>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-80571746259628617392010-05-09T21:34:00.001-07:002010-05-09T23:14:44.553-07:00Walton and Categories of Art: Implications for New MediaWith a dry and reductive approach, Walton in <i>Categories of Art</i> explains how the perception of representation works. He claims that for any category of art there are standard, variable, and contra-standard properties. The representation a viewer perceives when viewing a work of art is determined by the variable properties of the category. <div><br /><div>For example: "The shapes of a painting or a still photograph of a high jumper in action are motionless, but these pictures do not look to us like a high jumper frozen in midair. Indeed, depending on features of the picture which are variable for us (for example, the exact position of the figures, the swirling brush strokes in the painting, slight blurrings of the photographic image) the athlete may seem in a frenzy of activity; the pictures may convey a vivid sense of movement. But if static images exactly like those of the two pictures occur in a motion picture, and we will see it as a motion picture, they probably would strike us as resembling a static athlete. This is because the immobility of the images is standard relative to the category of still pictures and variable relative to that of motion pictures."<div><br /></div><div>Obvious? Well yes, but it has interesting implications for new media. In establishing, say, interactive video programming as artistic medium, we must conclude that we must also establish standards for that medium: for a particular work to represent something, it must have categorically standard properties. It is almost by subtracting out those standard properties that the meaning and particulars of the work become apparent. </div><div><br /></div><div>Outside of the art world, technological things (for lack of a more specific term) are usually put on display only for their technical and functional innovation. And so, often, when people approach a new media work in a gallery, their first reaction is to miscategorize the work as technology and to look for what is functionally innovative and novel. If they don't find anything novel, their reaction might be, "That's been done before."</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps the work's functionality has been done before, but painting things has also been done before. That's what makes a painting a comprehensible, particular, and meaningful object: paintings have certain recognizable and standard forms of representation.</div><div><br /></div><div>New media will be more meaningful and readily understood when thought of as standard medium rather than technology both by those who view it and those who make art with it.</div></div></div>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-76810102162365423822010-03-11T09:45:00.000-08:002010-03-15T12:17:03.449-07:00Depth of Surface: A Review<a href="http://creativearts.sfsu.edu/events/1414/depth-surface"><span style="font-style: italic;">Depth of Surface</span> </a>is an exhibition of the textile and texture based work of 16 artists currently on display at the SF State Fine Arts Gallery. Exceptionally varied in material and concept, the show was well crafted. As an artist who works increasingly with programming and digital media, I found it refreshing and pleasurable to examine these physical objects of such tactile presence. Textiles are a source of powerful metaphors: the threads of our lives, of meaning, of thought.<div><br /></div><div><span style="font-style: italic;">Rock Wall</span> by Jennifer Ferre, a tapestry of cassette tape appealed to me because it is woven information. Music is certainly a fabric in my life, I wondered what songs were on the tape. An ex's mix? Cassette tapes are artifacts, this one was remixed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Julie Chang's hanging scrolls of wall paper-esque prints were vivid and a little absurd. I had forgotten how nice it is to compose prints, juxtaposing graphics like plants and floor plans in saturated colors. As wall paper, it suggests that I think more about the images that make up our social and domestic environments.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmChbJ0fZrhqlTvPyBgtrfmshgk8qT8cjo0dP9uy8Rg5OG3ttgeJIrCWj9uWxv9D_Ye9eOr3gLCtLK-42pp-7Wd7VCboZXzgF6rmBbSBaCnfUrXTp26cUR3URsbRr0Ey_asKJOrcnl0PAq/s1600-h/Chang+ballerina"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmChbJ0fZrhqlTvPyBgtrfmshgk8qT8cjo0dP9uy8Rg5OG3ttgeJIrCWj9uWxv9D_Ye9eOr3gLCtLK-42pp-7Wd7VCboZXzgF6rmBbSBaCnfUrXTp26cUR3URsbRr0Ey_asKJOrcnl0PAq/s320/Chang+ballerina" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448938376171323890" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><div>Dustin Fosnot had made a cyanotype (a sun print) of his body on a discarded mattress. <span style="font-style: italic;">Mattress</span> Reminded me how textiles are part of our lives, and of the imprints we leave on the city.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpCz6KhVTU0CBd8qmPdCykYXXppO6eJ-bNjCvmIPQCKp3LXlh-byX1XgTXGU5i4YFeRTeppKZC8crTtrKCnelQF61lptcD0TNGy58EXBd4_TMRE0xAUwIQLq7JwibRecDkCzO7PQPXCkbc/s1600-h/Dustin"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpCz6KhVTU0CBd8qmPdCykYXXppO6eJ-bNjCvmIPQCKp3LXlh-byX1XgTXGU5i4YFeRTeppKZC8crTtrKCnelQF61lptcD0TNGy58EXBd4_TMRE0xAUwIQLq7JwibRecDkCzO7PQPXCkbc/s320/Dustin" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448941482355563618" border="0" /></a></div>Katie Lewis's <span style="font-style: italic;">Intermittent Transmission</span> was coded language: lines of tangled thread arranged like blocks of text on the wall. I thought, if it was text, would I read it? Would I feel it? The arrangement made me think of compressing language into writing by a codec other than letters.<br /><div><br />Ali Naschke-Messing seemed to be working with the thread-as-language metaphor with <span style="font-style: italic;">The Art of Storytelling: Ode to Benjamin</span> I appreciated the delicate, tangled, ephemeral feel of the words.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7TkVsZ6tnx3QhlZkZOrzwA4XWzp7EsXkBum5jYpTiLOVCmzvvL5f3WA4ss8XoDESNoC3o3jvDVzt_e8bmNzhRkWLrggYtogi2zgcFeKAuRbzM9WfRgfI3mp18hOXXVsB4owICfrEF36W8/s1600-h/Ali"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7TkVsZ6tnx3QhlZkZOrzwA4XWzp7EsXkBum5jYpTiLOVCmzvvL5f3WA4ss8XoDESNoC3o3jvDVzt_e8bmNzhRkWLrggYtogi2zgcFeKAuRbzM9WfRgfI3mp18hOXXVsB4owICfrEF36W8/s320/Ali" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448938557181191554" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ironing: Mulit-Terrain Pattern</span> by Mung Lar Lam, as a wall-size fabric installation was a nice contrast of scale to the other pieces. It recalled color fields and some kind of saw-tooth topography. There's a whole genre of art that is showing the subtle beauty of the everyday like the patterned creases made by ironing.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Depth of Surface</span> will be up until March 25th.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-78133903647588521572010-03-10T19:30:00.000-08:002010-03-15T11:30:10.530-07:00Gaze, the TV of Tomorrow and Augmented Reality<span style="font-family: georgia;font-size:100%;" >I installed <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubin110/4415582073/sizes/l/"><i>Gaze</i></a> last week for the TV of Tomorrow Show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. As a work that views the viewer, juxtaposes intimacy and surveillance and evokes a specter of machine consciousness, I thought <i>Gaze</i> was fitting for the proceedings.</span><div style="font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">A conference for mul</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">ti-platform interactive television, the TV of Tomorrow was mostly hyper corporate with talk titles like "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;font-size:100%;" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">Better Monetization through Better Counting: Measurement for Advanced TV and Video" and "</span><span class="Apple-style-span">Interactive TV Advertising: Who's Going to Click</span><span class="Apple-style-span">?" Art like my own was mostly there to legitimize that the conference was taking place in a center for the arts.</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-size:100%;">I did attend a handful of talks, the best being "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;font-size:100%;" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">Augmented Reality Meets TV." Clearly there is a bunch of innovative tech going on and a few advertising firms are applying it to web shopping applications, branding, and Facebook games. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;font-size:100%;" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;font-size:100%;" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">Certainly the most interesting AR applications remain those for mobile phones. The ability to view mapping info (restaurant reviews, closest metro stops etc.) in the phone as augmented reality (AR) is exciting in the way that it creates new ways of presenting and interacting with information. AR mobile games and the idea of imbedding information in space via computer-vision recognizable printed graphics is the thing most desirable to me as artist. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;font-size:100%;" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;font-size:100%;" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">The moderator was talking about AR as total immersion in a brand experience (which is a horrible way to frame it), but I think of it more as another increasingly fluid information exchange, more of a total immersion in information. This kind of interface allows for new forms and systems of user interface and interaction design, certainly a fun set of problems/possibilities.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size:100%;">In the faceless crowd of suits I met another artist, <a href="http://keiichimatsuda.com/">Keiichi Matsuda</a>, a Masters of Architecture student at the University of London, who had been flown in for the event to show his brilliant video, which illustrates all the potential (lovely and hideous) of everyday use of AR.</span></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><object height="300" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8569187&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8569187&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="300" width="400"></embed></object></span><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/8569187">Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop</a></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">He explained to me later that his architecture group explores architecture through film. We had a stimulating conversation about theory, art, etc. I'll certainly be thinking more about post scarcity anarchism, Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City and the composition of signifiers through time and space in film.</span></p></div>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-20461054851483862992010-02-16T11:38:00.000-08:002013-11-04T22:19:23.357-08:00The Pastoralism of New Media: A Rant About Contemporary Art<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We live in a world where the implosion of meaning and the end of history Baudrillaud wrote about so dramatically in Simulacra and Simulation (and which accelerated in the internet era) have now been around for a while. Philosophy, art, literature, in fact, all of the humanities were sucked into a theoretical black hole (which we can blame largely on Wittgenstein and the way that media operates to render information meaningless): meta to the nth.</div>
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But here we still are, getting up and going to work (if you're lucky enough to have a job), people in a meaningless, ahistorical world.</div>
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But Science, as post-structuralism dismantled feminism, humanism, and all metanarratives, held its ground, upholding it's empirical reductionism like a politician upholding family values.</div>
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And in the debris of postmodernism, it remains. Science.</div>
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Science, and Science alone retains the subject and the object, the signifier and the signified, the Future and the noble goals of mankind. Science, and not philosophy, will tell us the Truth about ourselves, the world, and through fossils and conjecture about early humans, the Nature of Man.</div>
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...Oh, and artists remain, bewildered by the absolute meaninglessness of their art history educations.</div>
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And two major trends have emerged: relational art, which represents, produces, or prompts inter-human relations (check out <a href="http://www.moca.org/library/archive/exhibition/detail/2953">Gabriel Orozco</a> and <a href="http://mirandajuly.com/">Miranda July</a>); and art that imitates or employs as its medium science and technology, creating abstracted data visualizations, substituting scientific approaches for aesthetic approaches, using the forms of science to imbue work with meaning. (Check out <a href="http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/terminals/t1/ucsc/wight/wight.html">Gail Wight</a> and the sound-memory neural networks of <a href="http://www.deborahaschheim.com/">Debora Aschheim</a>).</div>
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As these trends expand there seems to be a sentiment that a given project which is sort-of about science or is sort-of interactive is automatically art, even if it can't satisfy the questions "What does it mean?" or "Why should I care?"</div>
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But, back to Science. While some art that borrows from science and technology does so critically or works with the concepts creatively, some are just aesthetic objects inspired by science. And I love beautiful things, I do. I just don't want art discourse to be lost to the pastoralism of abstract, uncritical new media work.</div>
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Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-51520744867032128152010-02-15T23:06:00.000-08:002010-02-16T00:11:57.245-08:00Grad Programs<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">As I get closer and closer to my Studio Art degree, I think about what to do after graduating. What are worthwhile goals? How do I intend to participate in our complex culture and economy? In parallel to my art-focused goals I've been thinking about grad school, and post some token research last fall, I am looking into a lot more programs.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">While my focus on the intersection of art and technology from an art perspective is intriguing and satisfying, I want more technical skills. Digital applications have so much potential for changing society. In a world where there is practically infinite information and computation there is so much room for innovation in applications and usability/accessibility. While I'm interested in computer science, I want to use it for data visualization, interaction design, and/or information systems design. I'm excited by the work of companies like </span></span><a href="http://www.gesturetek.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Gesture Tek</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">, </span></span><a href="http://obscuradigital.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Obscura Digital</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">, and </span></span><a href="http://www.snibbeinteractive.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Snibbe Interactive</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Here's a list of programs I think look cool:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">The </span></span><a href="http://itp.nyu.edu/itp/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Interactive Telecommunications Program</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> at NYU, with a self-designed emphasis on computer science and information systems.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">The </span></span><a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/research/groups-projects"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Media Lab</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> at MIT definitely has some incredible-looking research groups: Affective Computing, Camera Culture, Computing Culture, Fluid Interfaces, Tangible Media...</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><a href="http://symsys.stanford.edu/ssp_static?page=ssp-description/expl1.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Symbolic Systems Program</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> at Stanford, which apparently com</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">bines</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">artificial intelligence, computer science, cognitive psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and symbolic logic. The Stanford graduate </span></span><a href="http://www-design.stanford.edu/PD/graduate.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Design</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> program there also looks interesting.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><a href="http://www.cc.gatech.edu/education/grad/ms-hci/overview"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Human-Computer Interaction</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> at Georgia Tech is an interdisciplinary program which allows an emphasis in digital media.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">U.C. Santa Barbara </span></span><a href="http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Media Arts and Technology</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">: emergent media, computer science, engineering, and electronic music and digital art research, practice, production, and theory. (Emergent media, I like that) Option of MS in Multimedia Engineering or MA in Visual and Spatial Arts.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I'm also pretty intrigued by the U.C. Berkeley </span></span><a href="http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/programs/masters"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">School of Information</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">, which goes with my most recent art theory flirtation, </span></span><a href="http://upress.umn.edu/Books/V/vesna_database.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Database Aesthetics</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">My approach for figuring out what I want to study has largely been through looking at companies that are producing the applications for the sort of things I dream about with my art, and looking at the sort of qualifications their staff has and/or that they are seeking.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I definitely intend to take a year or two off and see how I can evolve what I do outside academia before going to grad school. I'd appreciate your thoughts and advice.</span></span></div><div><br /></div>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-67667383148847688672010-01-26T13:26:00.000-08:002010-01-26T14:23:17.371-08:00Projects for 2010<div style="text-align: left;">Saturday "Everyone Intimate Alone Visibly," my collaboration with <a href="http://levydance.org/">Levydance</a>, premiered at Dance Place in Washington DC to a favorable review in the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/24/AR2010012402728.html">Washington Post</a>. With that I finished my major work of 2009. Inspired to apply my new skills to new projects, I'm planning a number of new projects for 2010.</div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeBZT-AfoKoJ0WdAUTby1N-gN7ba8M-LYqPwBPS0k_JT0sqMy2VQKmdx00UayTvbsZNkLHCEOMCjDdTgVU4GrZCF0TUW2BBEv5yPG7bVKc__uC5R11qHQWhLxXFTj_8SEB_77uX55o24Si/s1600-h/Anomaly+Image+1.jpg"></a><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Project 1: Collaborate with </span><a href="http://www.badunklsista.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Bad Unkl Sista</span></a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.badunklsista.com/"></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOjj4huLSiO2E8hW8_zO2cJTTZEYA0HJgtC-HviIDPvn-XR7kQqUWagUrXgcCTvPRWZaD4m4yZS2PSBoLjvEk3vHV4VpZK-Y-fMZvxPBCpAOs5X7MVp9b69GrkZMbUVSrSNIgTeXXb/s320/badunklsista.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431160407185226002" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 274px; height: 320px; " /><br /></span><div><div></div></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: left; ">Bad Unkl Sista is a San Francisco Butoh-inspired performance group. Their incredibly striking white costumes should work as interesting surfaces on which to project video. I'll use computer vision to track the dancers, applying some of the systems I developed so recently.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Project 2: A story of a dream: typewriter/language-based video installation</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiidAusUDZ3jHjqMpUNTb0VLBqXIu7Di5ZgluHFLlmwXNC1SpnQByf9_84z6tuVQTtQ6GJaf3euJ0ELLCX3UECnyV4E4m-P58BzhxvUZWunl05UGdUxYrHShLRCKHjPPx2cvZfs0IGh/s320/Typewriter.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431162394210235666" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 294px; height: 265px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>This does not yet have a name, but will derive a lot of its function from language and algorithms (I'll be reading some Chomsky). Basically I'll modify a mechanical typewriter with an Arduino to output ASCII. I'll make a program to parse words and mix video accordingly. There will be a lot of system design, video editing, and building the "vocabulary" of the project. Limiting it to one of my dreams will make it more expressive and personal, more aesthetically coherent (visually), and make it a smaller, more achievable project that I can expand on later.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Project 3: Anomaly</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeBZT-AfoKoJ0WdAUTby1N-gN7ba8M-LYqPwBPS0k_JT0sqMy2VQKmdx00UayTvbsZNkLHCEOMCjDdTgVU4GrZCF0TUW2BBEv5yPG7bVKc__uC5R11qHQWhLxXFTj_8SEB_77uX55o24Si/s320/Anomaly+Image+1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431165020240013410" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 166px; " /></span></div><div><br /></div><div>I'm expanding on <a href="http://maryfranck.net/works/anomaly/">Anomaly</a> with some new collaborators. Besides improving the current sculpture and electronics, I'll be working with Yosh!, Aaron McLeran, Moldover, and Pehr Hovey to have Anomaly control generative sound algorithms which use sound files uploaded by contributors online. As this becomes more developed I'll be inviting sound artists to contribute sound.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Project 4: Events etc.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;">This year I am co-producing Alchemy, a <a href="http://www.false-profit.com/">False Profit</a> interactive art event with Stephanie Tholand, which will take place April 24th.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>February 1st I'll be moving into <a href="http://millionfishes.com/">Million Fishes</a>, the artist collective and gallery in the Mission. My goals are to curate art shows in the gallery, hold workshops, work to improve Million Fishes' branding and visibility, and collaborate with my talented cohorts.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll also continue presenting and showing my work and probably organize another workshop on using Max for interactivity programming and computer vision.</div><div><br /></div><div>Basically this year is going to be about collaborating to make a lot of cool work, building on my skills from past projects more than acquiring new technical skills.</div></div></div></div></div>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-34223914408753884822010-01-21T11:14:00.000-08:002010-01-21T11:16:55.404-08:00New Museum: Urs Fischer<div>Thursday I visited the New Museum in New York with a friend I had just made at my interview at ITP. <a href="http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/417/urs_fischermarguerite_de_ponty#images_panel">The Urs Fischer exhibit</a> was "a series of immersive installations and hallucinatory environments. " True to the description, I found it to be entirely sensually pleasing. Exceptionally experiential in its use of space and tactile in its material, I thought it also managed to tie into the "real world" of marketing, the experience of products, design and manufacturing.</div><div><br /></div><div>The second floor installation of mirrored boxes with giant prints of objects on their surface captured the sense of desire and illusion generated by the ads they seemed to imitate. Larger and more vivid than life, I wanted to touch them. Wandering among them as in a strange garden was certainly "hallucinatory" and open to an array of meanings.</div><div><br /></div><div>The third floor gooey melting purple piano continued this tactility of medium. It looked like purple taffy, askew and distorted but perfectly detailed. The room had richly colored but subdued wall paper going all the way up, mostly a desaturated <a href="http://www.michaels.com/online/images/cp0055d13.jpg">burnt umber</a>-<a href="http://cdn.dickblick.com/items/015/41/swatches/01541_MarsViolet-l.jpg">mars violet</a> but which shifted at the top to different colors in the light, huge. As a background it made everything else in the room pop and put me inside the installation. It made me feel like everyone else was part of the installation, too: the blonde girl carefully photographing the suspended croissant and her hipster friend watching her, like they'd been arranged there as well. I anticipated something from them, and myself.</div><div><br /></div><div>The fourth floor had what looked at first like metallic clouds, like nebulous silver Vaseline, but which were in fact giant sculptures of cast aluminum. They were beautiful in themselves, but I thought they were all about how they were made: some American artist simply squeezed some wet clay in his hand, scanned it, and sent it off to China for people there to manufacture, then had it shipped back to the U.S.</div>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-74305029767774245542009-12-10T00:22:00.000-08:002009-12-10T00:41:41.697-08:00Eyes to Fly With: Gaciela IturbideI normally don't pay much attention to photography, but I came across the Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide's work, and it is so incredibly striking and poetic. I think that this is when image is most powerful: when it captures a vivid moment's story and all the myths within it. There's more, and it is hauntingly beautiful.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_424676833_445688_graciela-iturbide.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 533px; height: 411px;" src="http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_424676833_445688_graciela-iturbide.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.ruizhealyart.com/images/DSC03015.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 592px; height: 868px;" src="http://www.ruizhealyart.com/images/DSC03015.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://litera.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/artwork_images_423941755_359450_graciela-iturbide.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 439px; height: 439px;" src="http://litera.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/artwork_images_423941755_359450_graciela-iturbide.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-54573648541835177432009-12-08T18:01:00.000-08:002009-12-08T23:22:44.080-08:00A conversation with MichiLast night I was introduced to <a href="http://niij.org/">Michael Zeltner</a>, a new media artists from Vienna who currently resides in London. He works with Graffiti Research Lab and is best known for his <a href="http://www.earcinema.co.uk/">Ear Cinema</a> project. We had a long conversation about his work, new media art, my work and general tips on how to make it as a new media artist.<br /><br />Most of my art network is composed of people who consider themselves secondarily as artists and/or approach their work from tech or design perspectives. So it was refreshing and stimulating to engage with someone who is passionately involved in the new media and makes complex, conceptually driven work, working only as an artist.<br /><br />When <a href="http://www.audreypenven.net/">Audrey Penven</a> introduced us, Michael was working on <a href="http://niij.org/#project-shifts">Shifts</a>, his current project. Shifts is an installation centered on a photo of the back of Michael's legs, which have symmetrical waveform tattoos. A horizontal thread will scroll over the photo as the sound of the waveforms plays, referencing an audio player, while his blood spurts from a hole in the photo. Comfortably hanging out at <a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge">Noisebridge</a>, he was debugging his <a href="http://beagleboard.org/">beagleboard</a> (a Linux system with audio and video out, a little larger than an Arduino) to playback the sound and control the motors.<br /><br />As for making it as an artist, he encouraged me to submit my work widely, answer as many calls for art as possible, network with artists, and collaborate with people who are more well known than I am. "It's like social engineering." He recommended not showing for free: "Be arrogant." He also emphasized the importance of including patrons in the process and keeping them abreast of one's work. He seemed to like my work, but pointed out that my projects don't all come through clearly and vividly on my website.<br /><br />He ranted a little about new media art in the US, criticizing the all-too-common technical emphasis at the expense of articulated conceptual discourse. Certainly, there is a distinction to be made between artists and technologists. Borrowing largely from <a href="http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Nicolas+Bourriaud&source=an&ei=Nk0fS9mHFoX2sQOg17WFCg&sa=X&oi=book_group&ct=title&cad=author-navigational&resnum=4&ved=0CBsQsAMwAw">Bourriaud</a>, I consider that distinction to be the creation of meaning, a goal I strive for in my own work. I, too, am sometimes annoyed by what I perceive to be an over emphasis of what is novel at the expense of what is poignant.<br /><br />Michael is certainly making work that is both technically cutting edge and visceral.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-39783977103077730192009-12-04T23:27:00.000-08:002009-12-04T23:37:20.851-08:00IR Webcam 2I modified a second webcam to receive only infrared using an exacto, tweezers, film negative, vice grips, plastic wrap and this <a href="http://www.hoagieshouse.com/IR/">recipe</a>.<br /><br /><object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7978290&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7978290&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/7978290">IR eye</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2402080">Mary Franck</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p><br /><br />The plastic wrap was a stroke of genius: I didn't have any glue. The focus on this one is much better than the last, I think I should take that one apart again and adjust it. IR allows you to see people without annoying video feedback. Does nothing for their looks, though.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-3990968532205060922009-12-04T01:22:00.000-08:002009-12-04T02:00:15.718-08:00The halls smelled like highschool<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVAK3RE8-tcxmDR509b0uQLF40HTuYyh2yjeWm7AHin3l6AjcAuVO2NfE0U8YFqS04r5m_H1ijjNRelBbFryvNyBpLtnMAxpUhsAOn_jXS9kPQgvgh8IozdM3GNLnp5QmAC0RGyqPuwJmG/s1600-h/4156856481_15bcc2f740_b.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVAK3RE8-tcxmDR509b0uQLF40HTuYyh2yjeWm7AHin3l6AjcAuVO2NfE0U8YFqS04r5m_H1ijjNRelBbFryvNyBpLtnMAxpUhsAOn_jXS9kPQgvgh8IozdM3GNLnp5QmAC0RGyqPuwJmG/s320/4156856481_15bcc2f740_b.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411317292340314786" border="0" /></a><br />...body spray and hormones. I was at Galileo Academy to visit my friend Benjamin Chun's AP Programming class as a guest speaker. His students have been working with Processing, as have I.<br /><br />I spoke to them about combining art and technology, being an artist, showed them documentation of my work online, and had them play with <a href="http://maryfranck.net/works/gaze/">Gaze</a>. They were into it.<br /><br />I had set up a camera and a projection screen before the students came in, and when I finished presenting my work, they got to use data from a computer-vision maxpatch via OSC and implement it in a Processing sketch. I got to deliver the programmers the technical solution and they got to make the art.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApr5rI0m97ZoVHwnB-oDb-4zPh1S2lAfL_64KELi5vb21C5hzL2ExaJpSoXAAA82FduionCqNb06duyKLvhHdBHPfzwPA3qY-yHZli2-Y0-ep2N51T1J0YnI2ln5apXcRN3ZvTpu5OTj2/s1600-h/4157615584_38e5134f57_b.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApr5rI0m97ZoVHwnB-oDb-4zPh1S2lAfL_64KELi5vb21C5hzL2ExaJpSoXAAA82FduionCqNb06duyKLvhHdBHPfzwPA3qY-yHZli2-Y0-ep2N51T1J0YnI2ln5apXcRN3ZvTpu5OTj2/s320/4157615584_38e5134f57_b.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411317111397417218" border="0" /></a><br />And those smart, vivacious kids made cool stuff! It was special.<br /><br />Photos by Benjamin ChunMary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-30764847349646475322009-11-14T12:52:00.000-08:002009-11-14T17:05:03.220-08:00Martha Colburn - Puppets of the ApocalypseI was invited to the SF <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">MOMA</span> by my wonderful friend <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Bex</span> for <a href="http://www.sfmoma.org/events/1512">Puppets of the Apocalypse, or Martha <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Colburn</span>, Live Cinema</a>. Accompanied by live music and vocals we watched her hilarious hand-made collage animations of remarkably disturbing social and political content.<br /><br />Her technical work is amazing, she obviously spends years in the studio hand painting and cutting scenes and puppets-- flat paper characters with jointed limbs. She mines our culture and historical myths, incorporating found images of Jesus, soldiers, cowboys, Bin Laden, characters from the Wizard of Oz, prosaic puzzles, etc., assembling them into jarring, cluttered action scenes. Pretty intense.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.marthacolburn.com/index.php?id=74&pic=0"><span style="font-style: italic;">Myth Labs</span></a> may have been my favorite, combining images of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">meth</span> labs, Jesus, users, pilgrims and Native Americans. It's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">weird</span> and has a rich and absurd visual aesthetic and narrative.<br /><br />The music was, as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Bex</span> said, "SO cacophonous." There were vocalists, a saw/violin player, a drummer, pianist, and a guy doing entirely weird sound effects, and definitely having fun.<br /><br />It was fresh and tactile and analog, sort of the antithesis of overproduced super technically complex digital art.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-17188655570630280322009-11-03T13:30:00.000-08:002009-11-03T14:18:10.162-08:00Ben Rubin: Language As DataLast night I saw Ben Rubin present his art for the Art Technology and Culture talks at U.C. Berkeley. I had seen "<a href="http://www.earstudio.com/projects/listeningpost.html">Listening Post</a>," probably Rubin's most well-known work, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts a couple years ago. At the time I hadn't heard about scraping the web, and the piece felt to me like it was tapping into our collective consciousness.<br /><br />Influenced by Noam Chomsky's theory of language, most of Rubin's work consists of applying computer algorithms to a body of text (the Internet, the NY Times, Shakespeare), to parse from it phrases, which an algorithm reorganizes and displays on vacuum fluorescent displays. The display units, arranged into arrays, light up like old-fashioned tickers in choreographed patterns. Or, in the case of the "Shakespeare Machine," the text is arranged as colliding vectors in space.<br /><br />His work intrigues me in a few potent conceptual ways which make it an admirable example of new-media art. First, it's a lovely example of art as data analysis of things that would otherwise not be analyzed. (Some of his other work is based in the sonification of data.) Information as aesthetic object is so hip right now.<br /><br />Second, it carries forward the thread of art that has been exploring semiotics (so postmodern!) into the digital technology. I've been reading Wittgenstein and I see Rubin's work as decontextualizing language by rendering it into pieces then recontextualizing it in a new language game. The meaning of the related phrases is created by the viewer. Rubin experimented with having performers deliver the phrases, and found that it didn't "work" as well, though he had trouble articulating why. It seems to me that the Art in his work lies there, in the viewer creating the meaning. When an actor reads the phrases, they are interpreting the phrase and creating the meaning and delivering it to the audience, which as series of nonsense is uninteresting.<br /><br />Third, the process of his work is related to conceptual strategies of Dada, Fluxus, and Sol Lewitt, in that is a systematized method of art-making relying heavily on randomness. Those artists used those methods to remove their own aesthetics from their art-making.<br /><br />Rubin makes the distinction that in his work the words are not chosen randomly (like John Cage), rather, systematically by a computer. He chooses among the algorithms (applying his sense of aesthetic) by how well they work to create meaning or generate feeling. The meaningfulness is the aesthetic criterion.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-47426976339140465612009-10-24T19:20:00.000-07:002009-10-24T19:39:56.998-07:00Language, meaning, aesthetics and art.Big topic, small post.<br /><br />I've been read<span style="font-family: georgia;">ing "Philosophical Investigations" by Wittgenstein which is (surprisingly) very approachable and pleasant<span style="font-family: georgia;"> to read. The most essential idea I have come away with so far is that "the meaning of a wor</span>d is its us</span>e in a language."<br /><br />This no doubt inspired Nicolas Bourriaud 50 years later in saying (in order to answer the question 'what defines art and the artist?') that<span style="font-style: italic;">,</span><em style="font-style: italic;"></em><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span> "The act of showing suffices to define the artist." and that "Art is an activity consisting in producing relationships with the world with the help of signs, forms, actions and objects." That is, art and the artist are how they function.<br /><br />Our application of aesthetics, then, should be to the function of the art, to its effect, independent of the art [object, act, concept]'s own qualities. Not that this is a stretch. An art object is beautiful because it is pleasing to the eye. The art concept is beautiful because it touches on a dissonance in the mind or culture.<br /><br />This is what I want to keep in mind in my own art-making, less how effectively and beautifully I can make an object, but how effectively and beautifully I can affect people.<span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><br /></span>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-76811818027293711152009-09-28T20:14:00.000-07:002009-11-03T14:39:46.941-08:00The Undulation of Movement and the Perception of the MachineI have been working on a collaboration with LEVYdance, taking to new levels my skills with computer vision and interactive video programming.<br /><br />I've come a long way with handling video input to get good video for tracking, using IR to avoid video feedback and combining different kinds of video processing to best suit my tracking purposes. I use the IR video, then apply background subtraction or frame differencing, which allows me to locate the dancer and quantify their movement. I generate video within Max/Jitter that is determined by the dancers' movement and also export their location to Processing, where drawing algorithms which change over time swirl around and stick to the dancers.<br /><br />I'm now to the point of pinning down and debugging exactly the tech that the project needs, expanding everything I have worked out into the work itself. At the same time I am fleshing out the actual video content to be detailed, shifting, beatutiful, and conceptually interwoven with the choreography and the text.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Chunky Move's Mortal Engine<br /><br /><br /><object width="446" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"> <param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/NatashaTsakos_2009-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/NatashaTsakos-2009.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=621&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=natasha_tsakos_multimedia_theatrical_adventure;year=2009;theme=spectacular_performance;theme=presentation_innovation;theme=speaking_at_ted2009;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=art_unusual;event=TED2009;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;"><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#ffffff" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/NatashaTsakos_2009-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/NatashaTsakos-2009.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=621&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=natasha_tsakos_multimedia_theatrical_adventure;year=2009;theme=spectacular_performance;theme=presentation_innovation;theme=speaking_at_ted2009;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=art_unusual;event=TED2009;" width="446" height="326"></embed></object>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-1801671787847471982009-09-23T00:06:00.000-07:002009-09-23T11:05:27.703-07:00I have so many swirling thoughtsMore fun with video subtraction, now with flocking algorithms.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxiPdGg2DWbYdQ5q2wIvVztXR2d788UyTgcRvC1-yZuWWFsG7_9yq7N6jA6iIS3fen5OGlCDIbDMzov32KA1A' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-57729261167823334862009-09-22T12:36:00.000-07:002009-09-22T12:47:29.186-07:00Arthur Ganson "Machines and the Breath of Time"I attended <a href="http://www.arthurganson.com/">Arthur Ganson</a>'s talk, "Machines and the Breath of Time," presented by the LongNow Foundation at Fort Mason.<br /><br />It was beautiful, each piece so elegantly engineered. Ganson's exquisite mechanical art was matched only by his zen-like explanations: "all of these machines are self-portraits," "[I don't make machines that are utilitarian, I make] machines that are contemplation."<br /><br />His wire machines, like line drawings in motion, play with repetition through time and space. They create complex poetic paradoxes and parables of immateriality: of infinite speed and fractional gravity. My favorites are Machine with Concrete, Margot's Cat, Cory's Yellow Chair, and Machine with Wishbone.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-3381416620611929212009-09-20T17:33:00.000-07:002009-09-22T12:52:38.920-07:00Anomaly Installation for Park(ing) Day<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifZ4_mmijSSz88Y03Y9J6drKsXAG6E1E65Tpw0LXpC6DohrVAOy0-HChfX9hViPpx4wbFGn50zYI9XeCi9LVNtk2CNXgojggdfM6gS9Ox7xCOi229XVg8EZNYOxM7pFgvD4xRIu3roNA2o/s1600-h/3937562087_6c6a19737a_o.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifZ4_mmijSSz88Y03Y9J6drKsXAG6E1E65Tpw0LXpC6DohrVAOy0-HChfX9hViPpx4wbFGn50zYI9XeCi9LVNtk2CNXgojggdfM6gS9Ox7xCOi229XVg8EZNYOxM7pFgvD4xRIu3roNA2o/s320/3937562087_6c6a19737a_o.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384381892477512306" border="0" /></a><br />Digitally interactive parks are the Future.<br />I set Anomaly up for Park(ing) Day this year. Park(ing) Day, established by ReBar, is a day where people reclaim the streets by converting parking places into parks.<br /><br />Anomaly is an interactive installation: a steel bicycle tree made entirely of scrap metal and bicycles which controls digital media. My friend Yosh made digital birdsong and designed how it would be controlled in Ableton.<br /><br />Overall it was a success. People really enjoyed it, it was a little different than the other Park(ing) Day installations, which typically feature more prominently urban design. The random socially-interactive quality of the event reminded me of Burning Man in a way I really liked.<br /><br />It didn't take too much work, just a little preparation and some sensor-repair.<br />Ideas for future installations abounded, as did ways to tweak the control parameters to make it less of a shifting aural landscape and more of an instant-feedback instrument. It would be easy to collaborate with more sound artists and musicians now that I know how to connect Anomaly to Ableton. It also reinforced my desire to put more art on the street.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-65078360404240894182009-09-17T18:49:00.000-07:002009-09-17T19:17:30.811-07:00Passing Conversations, An Improbable Monument<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7iz8lBkJNoSitlkGk_jJVAlzY40e5YMUFzPYaWqXvrq-4aPnt3qO7TsKEK-rWkVtrjAu4aIxdVcmV8-NAHNvl4eicHPScEAtKsUIStzC-QuNhT2ILOxEGiKXw-YAxWzu3tY3xx1sjupSi/s1600-h/union+squaretext+copy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7iz8lBkJNoSitlkGk_jJVAlzY40e5YMUFzPYaWqXvrq-4aPnt3qO7TsKEK-rWkVtrjAu4aIxdVcmV8-NAHNvl4eicHPScEAtKsUIStzC-QuNhT2ILOxEGiKXw-YAxWzu3tY3xx1sjupSi/s320/union+squaretext+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382625171252762594" border="0" /></a><br /><p></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In San Francisco's Union Square would be installed as an ephemeral monument Passing Conversations. This would me a monument the lives of everyday people who pass through the square, represented in the random ephemeral phrases of their conversations captured by the microcontrollers and projected as text on the surfaces of the space. This reflects the dynamic, shifting aspect of our public spaces and translates to a visualization how people and language pass through space.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Within the rhythms of a city, monuments become like a strobe light: they have the capacity to freeze moments of time, capturing the vectors of our experience for our examination and contemplation. Monuments have the capability to pass on, from generation to generation, memories and events that have transpired, and thereby contribute to the creation of a collective cultural consciousness.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As a transitory monument, it passes on digitally captured experience to the next passerby, the experience a trace in the sand which fades relatively quickly. It is a monument on a compressed timescale, collecting moments and their, re-displaying them as a trace of their presence.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 217px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggRRZnR5RDeVsNdGCuuhubuM9jtN6F8kQCSd_MGApg9hLlswlTsHsDJIolMxAd-zHIhLT9Qd2hXh2Fm8lxu8qoLmy2WzP6OJpqhk-HfYBxBneBbKp1jCEU9o3pgrN_FQLRxuqcuV5I2uxl/s320/imbedded+unit+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382621143533745682" border="0" /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The microcontroller would record sounds above a certain volume threshold, transmit them wirelessly to a nearby computer where sound would be analyzed with speech-to-text programming. If the recording was what it determined to be language, it would be converted to an image of the text and transmitted back to the microcontroller and stored. These bits of conversations we will call language strings.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjuEzgnrgi1D-OdsEFpAl3pa8V_bp4eja5kA6Ts-HOsj05P1DQGVspASq7Cc5VodfvAO8oTaGTLEziVHYIUq0I4q8c8KMRsOlyIIkYePeD48ZtCyiIIcgSdQEFd0HJ1RLmsj3P6lthShfn/s1600-h/unitdiagram.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 286px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjuEzgnrgi1D-OdsEFpAl3pa8V_bp4eja5kA6Ts-HOsj05P1DQGVspASq7Cc5VodfvAO8oTaGTLEziVHYIUq0I4q8c8KMRsOlyIIkYePeD48ZtCyiIIcgSdQEFd0HJ1RLmsj3P6lthShfn/s320/unitdiagram.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382622450220210706" border="0" /></a></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />After dark the microcontroller would project language strings from the day and continue to collect more strings. At night when it received a new string, the new string would be immediately projected. Giving passerbys the satisfaction of automatic feedback and thereby making it clear what the project was. This would encourage people to leave messages for future passerbys. It would do this in many languages. Each microcontroller would have the capacity to store about 100 strings, and would write over them randomly, so most strings would be from that day, but some could conceivably remain in memory for a week or more. Each unit would cost about $400, plus the cost of the main computer, so an installation of ten of them would cost $4,200.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This monument is inspired by Listening Post by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin, the work of Krzystof Wodiczko, The Sixth Sense by Pranav Mistry of Media Labs, and “Microphones” by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128);"><span lang="zxx"></span></span><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This is Improbable because the technology is not quite here yet. Specifically speech-to-text in this situation would probably have low accuracy, which could only be partially filtered by programming. Microcontrollers are not used to give images to projectors.<br /></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p>Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-17648376684239000942009-09-13T23:54:00.000-07:002009-09-14T00:57:12.968-07:00Response to Bill Viola VideosIn class Thursday we watched <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5465661880359138467#">Anthem</a> (1983) and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux0NMWDpiXw">The Space Between the Teeth</a> (1976) by Bill Viola, an excellent artist to study for the theme of Time.<br /><br />Anthem was a pretty random assembly of subject matter: a tree in a forest, heavy machinery, a girl, surgery, x-rays, oilrigs, a flag, people on the beach. Throughout was the slow sound of the girl screaming.<br /><br />This sort of non-narrative abstracted video sequence is not engaging. It requires one to sit with the piece without convincing one to do so.<br /><br />I wouldn't make something like this, and I don't think other people my age would either. I would pick either something experiential, which I would not present as a film, or I would make something that is more direct, cohesive, appealing, or visually exciting. Art is past the point of being abstract, obscure, or inaccessible. It is no longer about the artist or even the art object, it is about the experience of the viewer. Or so I generally think. Few, few people would take the time to watch a film like Anthem when there are millions of other things on YouTube.<br /><br />It's important to break away from convention in art, but I value narrative as a primary mode of human understanding.<br /><br />That said, Viola has a way of making one spend time with the piece that was especially apparent in Anthem. His revealing of rythmic visual details long enough for one to be with them but mostly not to the point of one being bored (with that particular scene) before cutting to something new is skillful. He has a way of revealing beauty over time that is breathtaking, even if this was not one of my favorite of his pieces.<br /><br />The Space Between the Teeth had more narrative, and agian worked with rhythmic assembly of shots in an intimate way. There was something so bizarre about what was happening and simlultaneouly incredibly mundane. I liked that, I felt like his yells in that context embodied the sort of existential angst I sometimes feel. The random inclusion of the scenes from the kitchen with the TV noise is a lot of where I get that context.<br /><br />This is the first I've been exposed to Viola's earlier work. I've seen some of his work of the last two decades that was pretty simple and beautiful and touching, about meditation and spirit, life and death, more direct and sincere somehow in their immediacy. They seem to have shed the extraneous parts of his earlier work and very elegantly work with time to move the viewer. <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4601393374604231665&ei=G_WtSuXRGYScqAOo-_mnAw&q=%22bill+viola%22+installation#">The Passing</a>, 1991, is one of my favorites.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-40596333835287568312009-09-13T14:20:00.000-07:002009-09-14T00:38:36.418-07:00LoveTech Sept 12th<a href="http://lovetechsf.com/">LoveTech</a> is a monthly event that showcases live electronic musicianship, and, increasingly, digital video and interactive art.<br /><br />Last night's music included <a href="http://edisonsdemo.tumblr.com/">Edison</a>, <a href="http://moldover.com/">Moldover</a>, <a href="http://vapormache.net/">Vapor Mache</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/madzachandr2thespecialist">Mad Zach and R2 the Specialist</a>.<br />There were VJ mashups by <a href="http://cstng-shdws.com/">CSTING SHDWS</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/mzo">MZO</a>, and <a href="http://vimeo.com/mediapathic">Mediapathic</a>, <a href="http://vimeo.com/mediapathic"></a>a crazy music-controlled hologram animation-generator called <a href="http://www.hologlyphics.com/">Hologlyphics</a> by Walter Funk, and my own piece, Gaze, an interactive video installation.<br /><br />The evening started with TradeMark of the <a href="http://evolution-control.com/">Evolution Control Committee</a> talking about his sound installation for the Burning Man base. He used very similar strategies to those I have been using for Carbon Garden and Anomaly. He made it in Max, but generally thinks that Max is unwieldy for music. He mentioned some interesting things like the <a href="http://www.naturesounds.org/clns.html">California Library of Natural Sounds</a> at the Oakland Museum.<br /><br />The musicians pretty awesomely incorporated handmade and modified electronic instruments, one of the best applications for physical computing, surely. It was a real cornucopia of good beats.<br /><br />The event was great for meeting people/networking and getting technical suggestions for the piece. I'll definitely go again.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2289606838589242122.post-9899320256787524902009-09-12T13:33:00.000-07:002009-09-12T13:44:48.613-07:00Self-Perception is an Illusion<div style="text-align: center;">It is the process of examining the self that frees us from it.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwLQ9azp8zdsOwqjZDN87QwuVBser_BN26igNMkXaAW4tx3bnwYV47erzwWE_FNFPCRAKRGCQDHHlRSGBgPVA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /></div><br />I made this video in Max/Jitter. It's a recording of the video of an interactive installation, "Gaze," a program plus a projection.<br /><br />Using video tracking, "Gaze" explores new possibilities of the gaze through digital technology, suspending the subject/object dichotomy as the work looks at you. The effect is a juxtaposition of intimacy and surveillance.<br /><br />I continue to be fascinated by the aesthetic and social possibilities and implications of digital technology which I explore through interactivity programming, digital video, and <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1252787793_0">physical computing</span>.<br /><br />"Gaze" is achieved with a combination of computer-vision face-tracking, video positioning, loop-points, and chromakey.<br /><br />I'll be showing it tonight at LoveTech at Il Pirata and at the ATA Film & Video Festival in October.Mary Franckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03840358045360923570noreply@blogger.com0